Whakaraparapatia te Mātāpunenga

Kōrero: Farm buildings

Buildings on New Zealand farms range from the grand homesteads and huge brick shearing sheds of large sheep stations, to simple corrugated iron mustering huts, where men slept on bunks made from wooden poles and sacking.

Story Summary

Building materials

New Zealand’s early farm buildings were mostly made from local materials – timber, stone, cob (mud mixed with straw), concrete, or bricks made on the farm – or imported corrugated iron. Today, many farm buildings have a steel or wooden frame, and a corrugated-iron roof and walls.

Woolsheds

Sheds for shearing sheep have four main spaces:

an area to keep sheep dry overnight before shearing

the shearing board – so named because shearing used to be done outside on boards

the wool ‘room’, an area in the open shed where wool handlers sort the fleeces

a storage area for wool bales.

The basic design of woolsheds has not changed much since the 1860s.

Milking sheds

After milking machines were introduced, more rooms were needed for the motor, vat and separator. New Zealanders invented the herringbone shed, where cows line up on each side of a pit, and then the rotary platform, where cows are milked on a revolving platform.

Housing

The farmhouse or homestead usually has a verandah to hang wet gear and a woodshed. At the gate is a big mailbox where goods can be left.

In the past, large farms with many staff often had men’s quarters – a line of bunkrooms with a cookhouse at the end. Mustering huts in remote areas were built of corrugated iron, and had dirt floors and bunks made from wooden poles and sacking.

Other early buildings

Other buildings included:

hay barns

stables for horses

a smithy, where a blacksmith made horseshoes, gate hinges and catches, and repaired iron tools

a futtah – a store shed on stilts for keeping food supplies safe from rats, named after the Māori word ‘whata’.